Thom Tillis, the state rep from Cornelius who will be the next Speaker of the House in Raleigh, doesn’t just want to cut the state budget; he wants to rearrange what citizens expect out of government. On Saturday, according to the Asheville Citizen-Times, Tillis was at a swanky benefit soiree for former GOP congressman Charles Taylor’s political action committee at the Grove Park Inn.

Some of the state officials and other wealthy white Republicans at Saturday’s grand assembly emphasized, re-emphasized, and then re-re-emphasized that their knives will start slashing away at the budget as soon as the legislature is back in session. With claims of needing to cut 20 percent out of the budget, the GOP is trying to ready the state for a bloodbath, and beyond. Every department will be affected, said Tillis and others at the event, an affair the Asheville daily described as “festive.” “Festive” won’t be the word that comes to mind, however, when schoolkids, the poor and the environment are left figuratively bleeding on the floor after Tillis & Co. get through with their cutting. Some Dems are citing the need to raise more revenue, but Tillis made it plain that raising taxes to avoid catastrophic cuts won’t happen on his watch, “because if you do ...”  ... wait for the GOP’s core mantra ... here it comes ... "it will kill jobs."  Yes, and we all see how many great jobs were created by the wealthy who benefited from Bush’s federal tax cuts, don’t we? Sigh.

The main challenge, Tillis said, according to the Citizen-Times, will be “resetting expectations for people in the state.” Well isn’t that nice? “Resetting expectations for people.” Let me clarify what Tillis and his pals in the General Assembly mean, by putting their views in plainspeak: “If you’re not one of our major backers, or if you’re not a wealthy business owner — in other words, if you’re someone, or something, that actually needs help, and that includes the environment, or students who are guaranteed a sound education by the state constitution — you are soon to be completely shit out of luck.” If that won’t reset your expectations, nothing will. The only foreseeable problem for this exciting new GOP plan is that expectations could be reset in a way they're not contemplating; namely, the expectation that we’ll need to vote out these weasels two years from now.

• New NC GOP necklace, proceeds go toward balancing budget